1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a universal remote control device of the type which is hand held and which can be coupled via coded infrared signals with a remote control receiver built into a television or other remotely controlled electrical apparatus to turn on the apparatus, such as the television, at a distance, to adjust the volume, tone and brightness, to change channels, and to turn the television off.
Additionally, the present invention relates to a method for acquiring the infrared codes for a controlled apparatus, such as a television, generating code data related to these infrared codes for storage in a remote control device and methods for using the remote control device for finding, in a library or table of code data for generating infrared codes for operating different electrical apparatus manufactured by different manufacturers stored in a RAM of the remote control device, the code data for generating infrared coded signals for operating a particular apparatus, such as a television, and then for using the stored code data for generating the coded infrared signals for operating the controlled apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore it has been proposed to provide a reconfigurable remote control device and programmable functions for such a remote control device which will enable one to learn, store and retransmit infrared codes that are emitted from the controller for a remotely controlled apparatus, such as a television.
For example, in the Welles II U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,887 and the Ehlers U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,848, there is disclosed a reconfigurable remote control device which has the ability to learn, store and repeat remote control codes from any other infrared transmitter. Such a reconfigurable remote control transmitter device includes an infrared receiver, a microprocessor, a non-volatile random access memory, a scratch pad random access memory, and an infrared transmitter.
According to the teachings of the Ehlers patent, the infrared signals received by the remote control device are in bursts of pulses and the device counts the number of pulses in each burst as well as the time duration of each pause in a transmission between bursts.
As will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the universal remote control device of the present invention utilizes a single non-volatile RAM and does not provide a separate scratch pad RAM or, more importantly, a ROM.
In learning the infrared code and transforming same to code data which is then stored in a RAM of the control device and later used to generate infrared codes, a novel method is utilized wherein no counting of pulses takes place, and only the time duration of the pulses in a burst of pulses from the leading edge of the first pulse in a burst of pulses to the trailing edge of the last pulse in the burst as well as the time duration of the pause between bursts are sensed and used to learn and later to generate the infrared codes.
Additionally, unique methods for use in the remote control device are provided so that a number of infrared operation code sequences can be generated by the remote control device for operating various types of electronic apparatus.